Saturday, November 20, 2010

Latest Threat to Environment: Too Much Harper Hot Air

King Harper has spoken. There will be absolutely nothing done to address climate. Going into his usual fear mongering mode, he called democracy "irresponsible", and his the only voice needed in Harperland.

Instead of creating green jobs, he is doing nothing. Less than nothing considering the millions and millions of dollars he's wasted in climate change denial.

The Stephen Harper-controlled Senate delivered a brutal blow to climate action -- and democracy itself -- this week when it killed the Climate Change Accountability Act. The NDP private members bill, which passed the House of Commons last May, required five-year plans to tackle reductions in greenhouse gases based on targets derived from scientific advice. Prime Minister Harper labelled the bill "irresponsible," and claimed it threatened "millions" of Canadian jobs.

The bill, however, did not dictate specific polices. It was up to the government to choose how the targets were met. The facts do not support the claim that it is impossible to meet targets without losing millions of jobs. Sweden has reduced emissions to eight per cent below 1990 levels while growing its economy by 44 per cent over the same time period. A carbon-reduction plan could create hundreds of thousands of jobs by eliminating waste of energy -- and 60 per cent of the energy we use is wasted.

A Calgary energy company has been fined $125,000 in relation to a 2008 oil spill near Ralston that killed 300 birds. In court in Medicine Hat on Thursday, Harvest Operations Corp. pleaded guilty to one count under the federal Migratory Birds Convention Act "for the deposit of a substance harmful to migratory birds in waters or an area frequented by birds."

A coalition of Hamilton environmental groups is denouncing Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative majority Senate for killing a climate control bill earlier this week. Around 40 members of the Hamilton 350 Committee staged a noontime rally outside the federal building in downtown Hamilton today demanding Canada do more to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions in advance of a major global conference on climate change in Cancun Mexico later this month.

“I’m upset by two things,” said Hamilton Mountain NDP MP Chris Charlton. “First, the only piece of climate change legislation just got defeated in Parliament. “Second, I’m upset by the way it was defeated - by an unelected Senate overturning the will of a democratically elected House of Commons. “It’s absolutely outrageous.” She said Canada will go the to climate change conference in Cancun with nothing in its hands.

"They don't care," Eeyore said to Pooh."Who doesn't care?" asked Pooh. "I care.""Oh, yes, WE care," said Eeyore, "but we're just the little guys. The big guys don't care."Eeyore sighed.Pooh sighed, too. He had always thought everybody cared. It always made him feel good to think everybody cared. Now it seemed he was wrong. All of a sudden Pooh felt very, very lonely, and he had never felt that way ever before.